Drs Thegn Ladefoged and Dion O'Neale talk about Te Pūnaha Matatini, a Centre of Research Excellence hosted at the University of Auckland tasked with transforming complex data about New Zealand’s environment, economy, and society into knowledge, tools, and insight for better decision-making.

Our DNA has irrefutably been shown to share a common history with other species. This astonishing science seems to provide closure to the evolution-vs-creation wars – can the range of Christian beliefs about evolution survive this challenge from science?

Science can illuminate a fraction of our hazardous future, and it can dissect the mistakes of the past, but can it actually help us to prepare better personal, business and community responses to disasters?

This month’s Café Humanities event sees Buddy Mikaere take to the podium to discuss the on-going collision between Māori and Pakeha cultural perspectives on the environment. He will discuss the difficulties in reconciling these perspectives using the example of the MV Rena disaster.

"Smart" or "intelligent" textiles incorporate conductive fibres and embedded electronics. However fashion and electronics are markedly different fields – most smart textiles are designed with an emphasis on technical performance rather than aesthetics. They’re smart, but not very smart. Michele Peddie’s research knits together (ahem) technical skills and design aesthetics.

The traditional roles of energy producer and energy consumer are beginning to change. 'Smart Grid' technology, affordable energy generation, and storage options, present consumers with new opportunities to break their dependence on energy suppliers. In this talk, Dr Nirmal Nair asks what the future might look like for a choice empowered consumer.

Curator Simon Gould explores some exciting possibilities to make the objects, ideas and people that surround museum and gallery collections more dynamic, participatory and relevant to new as well as existing audiences.

While the NZ government has certainly increased spending on scientific research, funding for healthcare research is still very limited, and funding decision-makers tend to back established scientists with large groups – the ‘silverbacks’ of the science world. So what should younger scientists do in times like this?

Despite understanding the causes and effects of being overweight, rates of obesity remain high and are higher than ever in children and young people. Why doesn’t what the experts say about healthy eating inspire us to change our habits?

Cosmology was front page news all over the world this month with reports that scientists have detected waves in deep space triggered by the Big Bang. Come and ask Professor Richard Easther, a theoretical cosmologist at the University of Auckland what this means, what happens now, and what we are doing about it in New Zealand.

Michelle discusses how she is using flash fiction (stories of just a few hundred words) to capture the essence and mood of a historical moment, and how the seemingly dissimilar approaches to flash fiction writing and historical research go hand-in-hand.